Have I mentioned recently how much I love my job?

There is a kid in Oregon who loves CHAINS. He loves it so much that he wrote an original song about it and then made this video. Be sure to watch all the way to the end. There is a surprise there that might bring tears to your eyes. That’s what happened to me.

Truly amazing and inspiring! What a creative young man! Not only did he internalize your story, your characters, and your message, but he connected the dots from the Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement. Thanks for sharing it.

Amazing! Thank you for sharing. This warms my English teacher, book loving, teen loving heart! He got the book and he made some amazing connections! I’m planning to use Chains with my middle schoolers next year and will definitely show them this!

I. Love. THIS. What a talent, and what a great way of knowing you are heard! Laurie, I’d love to post this to my FB page, would you mind? This is truly the definition of tribute. I love there are people of great heart alive.

I can assure you Isaac got an “A” on his project. It was very impressive. This project was a great way for him to use his talents! His strength lies in the performing arts and his family is very supportive of that. Great Job Isaac (and family 😉

Our class read 3 novels related to slavery. Each student had a choice of 14 different projects to complete for their final. We have some wonderful sculptures, dioramas, posters, composed songs, newspapers, scrapbooks, critical review essays, murals, poems, and a couple other music videos. I have taken pictures of most of the projects. I would be happy to share them! We got some wonderful responses from our students.

I work in a “team-teaching” situation with another language arts teacher. Combined, we have about 80 projects for each novel from our 8th graders. Please let me know if you would like to see other projects related to CHAINS.

Woot! Go Isaac! I’m such a huge fan of Laurie Halse Anderson this is awesome! Isaac’s mom was my choir director, so I know for a fact that music runs in his blood and he is so gifted in the arts, I’m not surprised he came up with this. 🙂

I also had his mother as my choir director back when I was in middle school.. this goes to show how powerful the combination of creativity and encouragement can be. Nice work Isaac. Keep up the enthusiasm. You will reap the benefits even more later on in life.

You folks are rocking the block like Mr. Spock in your approach to student reaction to literature. Isaac did a great job on this. It’s great that the kids can express themselves and even the author of the book can see/hear about it!

I am planning on reading aloud Chains to my classes next year, so I am glad that you posted this. It will be so fun to share it with my students next year. I am sure they will be excited to see the possibilities with technology and creativity, and it will be icing on the cake that it was by a fellow Oregonian!